We call that development, but at every traffic light along the way are — Sefi Atta

"People don’t fear the wind until it fells a tree. Then, they say it’s too much."

"It occurred to me that there was nothing more precious than satisfaction. That it was possible to end up committing a crime just because you were contaminated by a little discontent. You could convince yourself that you were satisfied, then someone could come along and say, But I can offer you more, and then you could begin to think, My life is not worth much after all. In fact, you could tell yourself, My life was completely worthless from the start."

"I dont have much of an imagination, but I have a mind bank of details, which I play with. Its how I daydream, so writing like that is natural for me."

"You dont need attention to write. All you need is passion for your work and an overwhelming desire to tell a story you genuinely care about. Readers can sense your sincerity and it separates you from pretenders."

"She drinks her Eva water. Their parents were taken down by cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Respectable diseases."

"Cooking was a skill, I thought; an art form. In our country, we appreciated the end result, but not the craft, perhaps because we didn’t have fancy names. Paring was “cut it.” Julienne was “cut it well.” Chopping was “cut it well well,” and so on till you had puree, which would probably be “mash it.” And, if anyone was measuring any ingredient in a kitchen, it meant that they really didn’t know what they were doing."